Nintendo Switch: Team Xecuter’s SX OS has code to brick your console

Scene hacker Hexkyz reports that Team Xecuter’s recently released Custom Firmware for the Nintendo Switch embeds some code designed to intentionally brick a console, if it detects the user is trying to bypass the license restrictions. (For example by trying to run the CFW on a different console than the license allows).

This should not be too surprising: bricking code has been part of the tactics used by “dongle” teams for a while now, in order to reduce the risks of clones reusing their stuff “as is”, and in order to secure profits.

In theory, such malicious code is only supposed to trigger when the owner of the software attempts to use it outside of the boundaries of its license (e.g. “this code can only be used with our dongle” or “this CFW can only be used on one console”). In practice, we’ve seen our share of such devices bricking their own customers’ consoles. When this happens to you, you have no appeal. Even if you didn’t do anything wrong. (Besides paying for piracy, that is).

Hexkyz reports that from his perspective, it is very unlikely that you’d end up with a brick. His own experience happened because he was heavily tinkering with the console and TX’s device.

It’s also not clear how permanent the brick could be, given that hacks on the Nintendo Switch have access to almost everything on the device. Bricking code could do lots of damage, but also that some recovery tool could potentially help. Hexkyz seems to indicate a recovery would be possible, but difficult.

With that being said, you’ve been warned. Personally, I know enough about software engineering that I would not trust that this bricking code would never trigger “by mistake” for a legit customer of Team Xecuter’s dongle.

54 Responses

Wow, get the story right if your going to report it. The brick code would only be triggered IF you were trying to reverse engineer their code which i think is fair enough, why shouldnt they protect what they have made?

TX have also said they are removing it, not sure if they meant with V1.2 of the software or not.

“IF you were trying to reverse engineer their code which i think is fair enough, why shouldnt they protect what they have made?” That company now owns my console and I’m not allowed to mess with it anymore? There was no license agreement telling me that. The entire point of homebrew and hacking is so you can do more with your console, this software punishes you for thinking you own your console.

The level of irony in what they are doing is so high here. They are in the wrong line of work then and this just proves they are douches and only in it for the money. They have created a hack in which they reverse engineered code, for a community that likes and promotes reverse engineering code, but brick the communities consoles if you reverse engineer THEIR code. Is the maths finally triggering a spark for you are does someone have to draw it in crayon?

they don’t own your console, but you also don’t own their code. Its a designed to make profit, not hand down free cfw for everyone to reverse engineer and share freely. Not sure why everyone is surprised by that. They didn’t give it free after all.

Nailed it. It wasn’t made for opensource to crack it. Its a product for regular users who want to use CFW in a more convenient way. Ppl are upset b/c they did not expect to be a wall between them in cracking their ***. The brick code is also there to prevent clones remember how True Blue dongle for the PS3 ended up? Clones were *** up PS3’s giving them YLOD or a shorter lifespan. Open source devs need to shut up and start from scratch like they did with the Wii and Wii U pointing fingers isn’t getting things done.

“The brick code would only be triggered IF you were trying to reverse engineer their code which i think is fair enough, why shouldnt they protect what they have made?” You got a source for that? (that’s not just someone making claims in discord) It’d be less annoying if there was a specific warning beforehand.

Wololo clearly stated that is the intended function of such code. He just added a personal note that he wouldn’t trust it. Why? Because bugs happen! If you’ve ever done software development you are aware that anything beyond painfully trivial code has the potential to misfire and not behave as expected due to unforeseen circumstances.

It doesn’t matter what their intent is, or even really the quality of their work, because no one can guarantee perfection.

I’m surprised anyone who breaks their EULAs for fun/profit/freedom would knowingly buy into an unspoken agreement that if you break you get a brick, this makes them worse than Nintendo (who are pretty bad). Not only that it’s just a massive warning sign, I would NEVER run anything on any of my devices that I know has malicious code on it, even if it’s a deterrent.

Don’t try to figure out how someone else’s work works when they base their work on figuring out how someone else’s work works when they were lucky enough to find out that the people whose work they figured out didn’t include friggin’ landmines in their software.

First of all in order to do any of it, they did a fundme where people paid money. Also you should not charge money for piracy, that’s like stealing from your mom and pawning it for money. I think it’s only fair that someone cracked there code because they shouldn’t be charging for the firmware. Now the dongle is a differn’t story. If they would of just charged for the dongle and gave the firmware for free, that would of be awesome. TX is a hacker group that has always been charging money for piracy. I honestly can’t stand the group. But i guess everyone has there opinions and that’s just mine.

Well, I am not surprised. Not only their sxos gui looks very similar to the old gateway cfw look, their inner workings are copied as well. I tend to see why they are doing it, but the irony cannot be escaped as in using a device / cfw strictly designed for “homebrew” and running xci files which is something completely different as in allowing stealing. Then if someone would try to steal their “hard work” (I guess there was some hard work but the original idea and workings of the hack was lifted by them as well) they would gift you with a complete ruin of your console for which you paid with your hard earned cash. I cannot unsee the irony in here. Everyone steals from everyone else and in the process someone will stand on the wrong side of the fence. Anyway tx is a freakin’ leech and they should disappear now into the abyss completely.

Criminal sanctions from a criminal organization. What else were we expecting from them ?

To be frantic, I was incline to buy their handy dongle but now, they can stick it up their al capone vault. They know that their toy would have been cracked in a matter of weeks, they are just trying to buy time and earn the more they can before a free solution spreads (which already the case).

Don’t bite the hand that feed you, otherwise you can question your business model.

With this CFW, you have no guarantee that the brick code won’t erroneously run/trigger just because their CFW got confused while launching dumps, try and fight that with TX and also good luck recovering your saves and Switch then..

Lol the hate on here about them. I’ll keep supporting then, If I was in their shoes I would do the same, they are a business, they are making money and protecting the investing they spent money on. Don’t like it then stop whining and wait for the free alternative.

While I think charging for knowledge is wrong I also believe the people who do work on such complex jobs deserve to get there pay and really considering most will totally disregard Nintendo getting there money and any game developer on there books and go pirate you should all consider before making any compliant on any matter p.s thought Wololo would actually get there first and wouldn’t raise an eyebrow if he charged for his time tbf

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